1. Technical Field
This patent application relates, in general, to vendor rebates.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vendors are purveyors of goods and services. Examples of vendors are retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers. Rebates are deductions or discounts—offered by retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers—on sums of money due.
Two common vehicles by which rebates are offered by retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers are coupons and in-store specials. A coupon is typically a voucher entitling the holder to a discount off a particular product. The value of the voucher is typically printed upon its face. In general, upon purchase of an item subject to a coupon rebate, the purchaser presents the vendor with the coupon, and the face value of the coupon is then rebated from the purchase price.
An in-store special is typically an advertised discounted price on a particular item offered by a vendor. In general, upon purchase of an item subject to an in-store special, the purchaser presents the item for purchase at the point of sale, and the advertised discount is rebated from the purchase price, typically by data entry of a human user operating a point of sale terminal.
Traditional vehicles for rebating (e.g., coupons and in-store specials) suffer from several disadvantages. One set of such disadvantages arises from the fact that traditional rebate vehicles are often offered to the public in the form of Free Standing Inserts (FSIs) in various print media (e.g., newspapers and/or magazines).
FSIs are generally additional printed documents—consisting of either coupons or advertised in-store specials—that accompany traditional print media. One disadvantage associated with rebate vehicles offered via FSIs is that consumers find the use of rebate vehicles (e.g., coupons and/or in-store specials) offered via FSIs labor intensive and time consuming. Insofar as FSIs are “free standing,” they are not organized from the standpoint of the consumer. Thus, if the consumer wishes to utilize rebate vehicles offered through such FSIs, the consumer must (a) determine, from a highly disorganized (at least from the standpoint of the consumer) offering of rebate vehicles, exactly what rebates are being offered, (b) subsequent to determining exactly what rebates are being offered, determine if any rebates being offered match goods the consumer intends to purchase, and (c) either cut out or flag those coupons or in-store specials which the user wishes to apply to the goods the consumer intends to purchase. It is therefore apparent that a need exists in the art for a method and system which will allow users to easily coordinate rebate vehicles (e.g., coupons and/or in-store coupons) with items which the user desires to purchase in a fashion that is generally less labor intensive and time consuming that the process used in the related art.
Other disadvantages associated with traditional rebate vehicles offered via FSIs have to do with counting and redemption. These disadvantages can be most easily illustrated by describing the traditional process of coupon counting and redemption. In the traditional process of coupon counting and redemption, after a retailer has accepted coupons from consumers, the retailer must determine the total value of each manufacturer's coupons the retailer has redeemed in order for the retailer to be reimbursed by the coupon issuer. The method of doing this varies widely among retailers, but in general retailers periodically, such as on a weekly basis, collect all redeemed paper coupons and deliver the coupons to a third-party clearinghouse. At the clearinghouse, coupons are generally sorted either by hand, or perhaps by scanning, in order to determine what coupons belong to which manufacturer and the amount the manufacturer owes the retailer for redeeming the coupons. After the coupons are returned to the manufacturer, the manufacturer may again sort the coupons (using its own employees or another clearinghouse) to insure all the coupons are the manufacturer's. The manufacturer then recalculates the total value of the coupons in order to verify the amount the retailer claims is owed on the redeemed coupons. This process is completed for every one of the billions of coupons redeemed annually. By the time the coupons have been collected by the retailer, passed through one and possibly two clearinghouses, and the manufacturer reimburses the retailer, several weeks or months may have passed. This results in a considerable disadvantage to the retailer since the time between when the retailer gives the consumer the coupon discount and when the manufacturer reimburses the retailer is, in effect, an interest-free loan to the manufacturer. The manufacturer also suffers from the slow redemption process since the manufacturer cannot determine the effect of the coupon promotion until the manufacturer receives information on the number of coupons redeemed. It is therefore apparent that need exists in the art for a method and system which provide near-immediate coupon counting and reimbursement.
In addition to the foregoing, realize that the foregoing described process of traditional coupon counting and redemption, and disadvantages associated therewith, must be duplicated for every interaction between different retailers and manufacturers. That is, if a retailer deals with more than one manufacturer, the retailer must duplicate the counting and reimbursement request for the rebates offered for each unique manufacturer. Likewise, if a manufacturer deals with more than one retailer, the manufacturer must duplicate the counting and reimbursement recalculation for each unique retailer. Thus, in addition to the disadvantages associated with interactions between just one retailer and just one manufacturer, from a retailer and/or wholesaler standpoint, the related art processes of coupon counting and reimbursement are extremely inefficient due to the described reduplication of effort for each unique retailer and/or manufacturer. It is therefore apparent that need exists in the art for a method and system which provide near-immediate coupon counting and reimbursement in such a way that retailers and/or manufacturers may be relieved from the described reduplication of effort.
Another set of disadvantages associated with traditional rebate vehicles (e.g., coupons and/or in-store specials) arises from the fact that traditional rebate vehicles are not generally subject to either near-real-time control or monitoring. Such inability to control and/or monitor in near-real time can give rise to substantial detriments to rebate issuers, especially when market conditions vary from the projected conditions upon which rebates issued.
A rebate on an item is generally offered based on predictions of the market price for the item, and an anticipated rate of redemption of the rebate. In the event that either of the foregoing predictions is grossly off, the rebate issuer can be left with substantial outstanding liability. For example, assume that a tomato-paste manufacturer—on the basis of a forecast that the coming season's tomato harvest will be average and an anticipation that sales of tomato paste will follow previous industry trends—issues a coupon offering a 25 cent rebate on each 16 ounce can of tomato paste. Next assume that, contrary to expectations, the season's tomato harvest far exceeds expectations, resulting in a depression of tomato prices such that consumer redemption of the 25 cent rebate per can of tomato paste results in a loss to the tomato-paste manufacturer. Alternatively, or in addition to the foregoing, assume that the rates of redemption of the 25 cent rebate per 16-ounce can far exceed the expectations of the rebate issuer, which further exacerbate the problems associated with the rebating.
If either or both the projected market price of an item or projected rates of redemption for the item's rebate are grossly off (e.g., as in the tomato paste example), it is desirable that the rebate issuer be able to adjust either or both the monetary amounts or numbers of rebates issued. In addition, since market conditions and redemption rates can vary in near real time (e.g., a price decrease due to a discovered disease, such as mad cow disease), it is desirable that the monetary value and/or number of offered rebates be able to be adjusted in near-real time. Unfortunately, traditional rebate vehicles cannot respond to the foregoing scenario in that they are essentially fixed and time-invariant. Accordingly, rebate issuers, being attuned to the possibilities of the foregoing described vagaries of the market economy, hedge their bets by offering less attractive rebates than they would if the rebate issuers could respond to such market conditions in near-real time. This is inefficient and adds cost which consumers would otherwise not be forced to pay. It is therefore apparent that a need exists in the art for a method and system providing near-immediate user-sensitive rebating (which can be useful in comparing expected rates of redemption against actual rates of redemption) and near-real time rebate control (which can be useful in adjusting the rebate values to account for market vagaries).
Those skilled in the art will recognize that rebating, and particularly rebating offered via the vehicles of coupons and/or in-store specials, is a form of advertising. When vendors advertise, they typically strive to associate their “mark(s)” (e.g., a trade or service mark(s)) with various goods or services. The inventor has discerned that, in the related art, there is often no inexpensive way by which the vendor can assess the strength of his mark(s), relative to the strengths of other mark(s). It is therefore apparent that a need exists in the art for a method and system which will allow a vendor to assess the strength of the vendor's mark(s) relative to other mark(s).